


Limbo

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 14:29:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13766115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Written for the 2018 sentinel bingo prompt 'Trapped in a dream'





	Limbo

Limbo

by Bluewolf

Blair woke, half-remembered dreams flickering through his mind. Jim telling him to leave - and after close on four years, wasn't that a shock! Heading for his office, the only place he could think of where he could find a roof to cover his head, with the back seat of his car filled with boxes. Sitting in his office wondering how he could get away with spending the entire night there - indeed, not just the one night but several; he couldn't afford the cost of a motel room at that moment; living with Jim for so long... Yes, he had been able to afford $850 a month for the warehouse, but living with Jim, who had never accepted rent from him (even though he joked about 'back rent' occasionally) had encouraged Blair to spend money on things like car maintenance, and he had just had the Volvo overhauled; and that had cost a fair amount. Though he thought he should change his garage - he was beginning to suspect the one he went to of ripping him off, with the owner not doing repairs he said he'd done. None of his university friends were in a position to give him even floor space. And then Alex Barnes coming to his office... forcing him out at gunpoint... hitting him over the head with the gun and throwing him into the water of the fountain in front of Hargrove Hall. Half conscious, unable to summon up the energy to try to push himself upright... the cold of water filling his lungs...

Weird...

But he was awake now.

He raised his head. Odd... he was in the open countryside, but nowhere he could recognize; the sun high in the sky... He tried to push himself upright, and his movements felt somehow... not awkward, but not what he was used to. His head felt unusually close to the ground, and he was holding it at a strange angle...

He blinked, and realized... he wasn't standing on two feet, but on four. He tried to shake his head, to knock some sense into it - and his whole body shook in a long, ecstatic shiver.

He tried to examine his body, and realized he was in the body of a wolf.

Puzzled, he took a few steps forward. Well, this new body knew how to move... and move easily. But how...

The last thing he remembered - well, the last bit of his dream, and he was beginning to think that those 'dreams' were reality - was cold water filling his lungs... drowning. So had he died? Was this new form a new incarnation?

But if it was a new incarnation, he would have expected to be reborn as a pup - a wolf cub - not as an adult wolf!

He looked around again. Really, this was a very beautiful place! There were distant hills giving an uneven, fairly jagged, horizon... His wolf avatar couldn't actually smile, but Blair was aware of mentally smiling as he remembered how much he had hated the very flat scenery of a place  - he couldn't remember where - Naomi had gone to live when he was about ten, and his joy when they left there and gone somewhere where there didn't seem to be an inch of totally flat ground.

This was a mixture, with the hills in the distance - and because they were so distant he suspected they were higher than they looked - and gently undulating ground between where he was and those hills... There were scattered trees, a few, here and there, clumped together but none of those clumps were big enough to be called a wood. They were, at best, copses. The ground between the trees seemed to be a mixture of heathland and grassland and... yes, bog, where a river meandered across a stretch of relatively flat ground.

He looked up at the sun again, aware that it was getting warmer. One of those copses could give him some shelter from an over-warm sun. But why should he be feeling so warm? The place didn't look tropical. Maybe it was the furry coat he now wore?

Blair-wolf began to walk towards the nearest copse, which the human part of his mind estimated was possibly a short mile away. It only took a minute before he began to trot, finding that a more comfortable speed. It seemed to take almost no time at all before he reached the copse.

He settled into the shade at the edge of the trees. Yes, that was more comfortable! Still warm, but cool enough to be very pleasant. Then he looked out over the land in front of him.

Was it his human mind that was aware of the beauty of the place? Or did the wolf have an appreciation for beauty too?

Whichever.

His mind returned to what he had thought was a dream, but now realized was reality. This was the dream, this world where he had no worries, no responsibilities. It seemed a long time since he had had no responsibilities... He forced himself to concentrate, thinking.

His years from sixteen, when he went to Rainier, to twenty, when he had earned his Masters and been given his job as a TA. Those years had been his, to live his own life, to study for himself. Before that he had felt he had to be responsible for his sometimes scatterbrained mother; much though he loved her, he couldn't deny her basic irresponsibility. After that he had responsibilities to the students he taught. And then, as well, he had had responsibilities towards his sentinel.

He drew a deep breath. How long could he stay here?

And then, coming towards him, he saw a melanistic jaguar, and knew that his time there was ended.

 

 

 


End file.
